The embodiments described herein relate generally to mobile or wireless communication and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus for enhancing short message service (SMS) text messages transmitted to mobile communication devices.
Many known wireless communication networks include short message service (SMS) text messaging features that enable mobile users to easily and efficiently transmit and receive text messages using a wireless device such as a cellular, or cell phone or other wireless apparatus. Typically, an SMS text message is composed using a cell phone or other transmission device, and transmitted therefrom to a destination wireless device via one or more routing nodes. For example, an e-mail message may be generated using a computer terminal residing within a data network (e.g., the Internet) and transmitted to a mobile terminal within a wireless network as an SMS text message. SMS text messages may also be automatically generated by monitoring systems. For example, security systems may generate SMS text messages to notify a remote user of an alarm.
Known SMS text messaging systems do not have prioritization features. For example, users with the destination wireless device do not have the option to prioritize their received text messages. For example, a user may desire a feature that distinguishes a routine text message received from a friend or family member from alarm text messages generated by a monitoring system. Many known SMS text messaging systems utilize 160 seven-bit characters for a total of 1120 binary bits, wherein 160 characters is the maximum size of a text message transmission. In such known SMS text messaging systems, the size limitations exclude the use of standard text features found on a computer workstation and word processing applications, e.g., text italicization, text bolding, and text coloring (other than black). However, some SMS text messaging systems use standards other than the 160-character standard that include such text enhancement features. For example, SMS extensions such as Enhanced Messaging Service (EMS) can permit up to 8,000 bits to be transmitted in up to eight separate 1000-bit strings that are concatenated at the destination device. However, these additional features rely upon specialized transmission, routing, and receiving equipment that may be costly to implement. Moreover, such systems may require additional code programming to ensure that the individual message strings are strung together at the recipient's device.
In addition, known SMS text messaging systems do not have features that enable certain text messages to be routed only to predetermined individuals and/or devices. More specifically, given a set of potential recipients, sending certain test messages to subsets of those potential recipients is not an available option. Rather, typically, text messages are sent to only a single individual, thereby excluding additional intended recipients, or are sent to all individuals on a list, regardless of need to be notified. Further, many known SMS text messaging systems do not have spam filtering features. As such, users of these systems may receive an unacceptable volume of unwanted text messages from undesirable sources. Those SMS text messaging systems that do include direct spam filtering of SMS messages, generally, require significant upgrades to the existing SMS service infrastructure. That may be expensive and, that may require a significant amount of time to implement.